Electronic Arts Selected for Multi-Year Agreement for the Future of Star Wars Gaming

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Their current engine, Frostbite 2, yielded "not too promising results" on Nintendo's next-gen console, so EA isn't going to try to jam Frostbite 3 onto the machine at all. EA also doesn't do a lot of ported games, aside from sports and driving games. This very likely means that...

NEW STAR WARS GAMES WON'T BE ON THE WII U

As if gamers needed any more reason to be annoyed with Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm.

There would be such a huge anti-trust lawsuit if the next gen consoles pulled that crap. It would completely shut down several companies whose sole purpose is renting games.

Likely not, it hasn't stopped previous attempts at this sort of DRM in the past, it hasn't stopped booksellers with e-books (they've gone after pricing, not distribution), it hasn't affected itunes on the ios medium. Look at EA's Online Pass system, it makes renting or reselling multiplayer online games from them unplayable without buying an extra pass, that's already fully legal. And with more and more game sales going digital-distribution, there's no rental possible anyway. No, sadly if this went through the industry would get away with it, and the consumers would suffer. They'd simply argue that the needs of the market have changed, nobody forced Hollywood studios to keep making VHS tapes when DVDs took over just because Blockbuster was making the majority of their money off rentals.

I never understand what they did with that ending. It's like they put all this time and effort into a great game, then were cut short on time. Even the extra ending that was downloadable content wasn't acceptable.

I hear that, it really does seem like they just ran out of resources and spewed out whatever.

Regarding the "always on console" conversation, Sony said they haven't considered such a thing because not everybody has great internet: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/...-playstation-4
Of course, maybe Microsoft doesn't give a fart about gamers who can't afford super awesome broadband internet anyway because they're not likely to buy as much digital product from Microsoft. Classy!

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

Here's the thing, with the Xbox, you know what you're getting into, you know in advance that it will require an always-online connection, and you can choose not to buy it because of that at the outset. With SimCity's launch, they really didn't tell you that, they undersold the problem and didn't recognize the demand, EA didn't invest enough in server technology to support that launch and it crushed it. Then they lied and mislead and made promises they couldn't keep to support the problem. And it wasn't on a console, it was on your own PC - you had no choice thanks to EA.

I suppose that is true. Those of us that keep up to date on the latest news when it comes to video games will know in advance. I can still see it becoming disaster though in regards to the general public.

I've heard it both ways. From what I've read it theoretically sounds like if such a feature is present in the next gen Xbox that Microsoft has it set up in such a way that they have the ability to toggle the "always online" requirement on/off via an online software patch at the drop of a hat.

Originally Posted by JediTricks

If they stick with this always-on DRM crap and require huge installs to the drive, there won't be much market for it. The industry has been trying to enact these 1-disc, 1-machine ideas for decades now to no avail, I doubt Microsoft will succeed where nobody else has.

Whether or not they succeed at it doesn't mean they won't try it.

Originally Posted by Darth Metalmute

There would be such a huge anti-trust lawsuit if the next gen consoles pulled that crap. It would completely shut down several companies whose sole purpose is renting games.

Yeah, it would completely suck. Nothing is concrete at the moment though. We'll know more come the 21st. If any of this rumored stuff about the next gen Xbox is true though I think its safe to say the PS4 (which unlike the PS3 is very developer friendly) will be well on its way of pulling ahead this gen.

Their current engine, Frostbite 2, yielded "not too promising results" on Nintendo's next-gen console, so EA isn't going to try to jam Frostbite 3 onto the machine at all. EA also doesn't do a lot of ported games, aside from sports and driving games. This very likely means that...

NEW STAR WARS GAMES WON'T BE ON THE WII U

As if gamers needed any more reason to be annoyed with Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm.

While this isn't EA's official stance (as a company) this story over at IGN kind of says how the guys working at EA feel about the Wii U.

I'll never understand what Nintendo does anymore. However, Wii-U isn't the strangest thing to come out of Japan. That being said, outside of Zelda, Metroid, and Mario, their systems aren't really worth getting.

Nowhere in your incoherent ramblings did you come anywhere close to the answer. Thanks to you, everyone in this room is now stupider having heard you. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul. -Billy Madison-

There were quite a few games for the Wii that made it worth having, particularly Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Sports Resort. The Lego games were also quite fun, but, as third-party games go, they were kinda the exception.

However, instead of improving on the motion gimmick that made it unique, they went to that weird "laptop controller" mess. Also, it's not backwards compatible to the GameCube, despite using the same discs, which was one advantage the Wii had over the PS3 and XBox 360 (neither of which was 100% backwards compatible). They need to re-examine what makes them unique and popular, because, while I don't think it's quite time to pronounce them dead yet, they're inching closer to that time.

While this isn't EA's official stance (as a company) this story over at IGN kind of says how the guys working at EA feel about the Wii U.

Yeah, I saw that. Not the classiest way to express one's self when one works in the game industry, but the machine is nonsense.

Originally Posted by El Chuxter

Hell, I'm a Wii fan, and I think the Wii U is the dumbest thing I've ever seen and lament that it essentially means the death of future Wii games.

I think it's hilarious how it works with the Wii stuff, but doesn't come with any Wii controllers or equipment.

Originally Posted by El Chuxter

There were quite a few games for the Wii that made it worth having, particularly Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Sports Resort. The Lego games were also quite fun, but, as third-party games go, they were kinda the exception.

However, instead of improving on the motion gimmick that made it unique, they went to that weird "laptop controller" mess. Also, it's not backwards compatible to the GameCube, despite using the same discs, which was one advantage the Wii had over the PS3 and XBox 360 (neither of which was 100% backwards compatible). They need to re-examine what makes them unique and popular, because, while I don't think it's quite time to pronounce them dead yet, they're inching closer to that time.

It's not even a laptop controller, it's meant to cash in on the Tablet craze, but the guts of the video controller have no computing systems, it's just designed to transmit input data and receive and display video data through a slightly modified WIFI N connection, it's ridiculous.

And why call it a "Wii" (as in "together") "U" (as in "alone")? It's a half-baked premise for a half-baked console, should have called it what it really is, the Wii HD - Pain in the Wii.

Darth Vader is becoming the Mickey Mouse of Star Wars.

Kylo Ren - came from Space Brooklyn, although he moved to Space Williamsburg before it was trendy.

The use of a lightsaber does not make one a Jedi, it is the ability to not use it.

I think it's hilarious how it works with the Wii stuff, but doesn't come with any Wii controllers or equipment.

I think the general idea was that a majority of people buying the Wii U wouldn't need the Wii stuff packaged with the system on account that they likely already owned said stuff from the original Wii system. Why make the system unnecessarily more expensive when a majority of the perspective buyers already own it.

Originally Posted by JediTricks

It's not even a laptop controller, it's meant to cash in on the Tablet craze, but the guts of the video controller have no computing systems, it's just designed to transmit input data and receive and display video data through a slightly modified WIFI N connection, it's ridiculous.

You know, I've never really looked at it as trying to cash in on the tablet craze. I see it more as trying to cash in on the success of the Nintendo DS in home console form. The TV is the upper DS screen and the touch screen on the Wii U controller is the lower touch screen of the DS.

Originally Posted by JediTricks

And why call it a "Wii" (as in "together") "U" (as in "alone")? It's a half-baked premise for a half-baked console, should have called it what it really is, the Wii HD - Pain in the Wii.

Yeah, the execution this time around hasn't been that great. I still applaud them for trying to do something new for the system though like adding DS elements to a home console or the ability to play your game while someone else watches TV.

I think going to HD, allowing the Wii 2 to play blu-rays, continuing to offer full backward compatibility, and introducing a better WiiMote would've been the way to go, and would've been what the market preferred. The Wii took the gaming world somewhat by surprise. Sure, it was mocked for how limited it was in some regards, but the novelty got a lot of people buying it who wouldn't have thought twice of it. Even Sony and Microsoft tried to jump on the craze with the Move and Kinect. The Move I have not tried (and it looks silly), and Kinect is the buggiest piece of crap I've ever seen and it's tough to see why Microsoft didn't dump it within a few months. The WiiMote worked quite well, and the WiiMote Plus even better. Why not get better at what people want, and other companies can't come close to matching you on?